Crossing the Border by Joy Harjo

 

We looked the part.

It was past midnight, well into

the weekend.  Coming out of Detroit

into the Canada side, border guards

and checks.   We are asked,  “Who are you Indians

and which side are you from?”

Barney answers in a broken English.

He talks this way to white people

not to us.  “Our kids.”

My children are wrapped and sleeping in the backseat.

He points with his lips to half-eyed

Richard in the front.

“That one, too.”

But Richard looks like he belongs

to no one, just sits there wild-haired

like a Menominee would.

“And my wife…” Not true.

But hidden under the windshield

at the edge of this country

we feel immediately suspicious

These questions and we don’t look

like we belong to either side.

“Any liquor or firearms?”

He should have asked that years ago

and we can’t help but laugh.

Kids stir around in the backseat

but it is the border guard who is anxious.

He is looking for crimes, stray horses

for which he has no apparent evidence.

“Where are you going?”

Indians in an Indian car, trying

to find a Delaware powwow

that was barely mentioned in Milwaukee.

Northern singing in the northern sky.

Moon in a colder air.

Not sure of the place but knowing the name

we ask, “Moravian Town?”

 

The border guard thinks he might have

the evidence.  It pleases him.

Past midnight.

Stars out clear into Canada

and he knows only to ask,

“Is it a bar?”

 

Crossing the border into Canada,

we are silent.  Lights and businesses

we drive toward could be America, too,

following us into the north.

What makes you feel like an outsider?